CME accreditation for medical MOOC

For the first time, medical professionals will be able to obtain Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits for successfully finishing a Dutch Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on kidney transplantation.

The MOOC, which was developed by the Leiden University Medical Centre and the Centre for Innovation, allows medical professionals worldwide to earn CME credits for educational activities, in order to keep developing their knowledge about new advancements in this field.

The Clinical Kidney Transplantation MOOC includes interactive lectures, animated movies and real time videos, offering an engaging and flexible learning environment for learners worldwide. So far around 10,000 people worldwide have enrolled in the course on Coursera, with a feedback rating of 4.8 out of 5.

The possibility to obtain credits for Open Online learning fits in the wider trend of ‘micro-credentialing’ in online learning, where you can earn credits by studying a certain topic. For this MOOC, 5 to 13 credit points can be obtained depending on the workload and in collaboration with Boerhaave Continuous Medical Education. The course was already available for medical students to earn academic credits (ECTS), as part of of the Virtual Exchange programme in which 9 (inter)national universities including Leiden University participate.

From 12 March, the existing course will be extended with a new learning track that involves unique 360 VR videos from a Kidney Transplantation surgery, created by the Centre for Innovation. In the future, the Leiden University Medical Centre aims to offer more MOOCs with accreditation in order to stimulate lifelong learning among medical professionals.